Grateful
by Murasaki Kaida
Summary: Set after the Hueco Mundo arc. Ulquiorra is entering into more than just a shaky alliance with Soul Society. Some very mild romance but mainly angst.


MISC: Written for Fanay at LJ with the prompt of having Ulquiorra as a human/in a gigai and staying with Orihime. Beta'd by the wonderful Paper, aka lilmisfits8811. You're a doll!

* * *

"While you are here, I'm sure you understand that we must take precautions," Urahara said around a lollipop. His hat shadowed his eyes but failed to deaden the intensity of their stare. Especially when Ichigo and Renji flanked him on either side, their faces grim.

She was scared. It was foolish and felt like a liar and a traitor (on many different levels) but she was scared.

Rukia didn't understand. The shinigami wasn't used to touching but she was holding Orihime's hand because she thought Orihime was scared of him.

Not _for_ him.

"I realise that this little…alliance would only last as long as Aizen does," Urahara continued around the candy. Yoruichi met Hitsugaya's gaze. They stood in a strategic vantage point, cutting off any possible escape route from the basement of Urahara's store. Silent discomfort passed between the two of them. "But in the time it takes to bring him down…well. I'm sure you can understand why I want to guarantee our safety."

Orihime swallowed; her throat dry. He was just standing there, his face as quietly mournful as ever and his hands in his hakama pockets. They were all facing him – all showing him such hostility in their postures and their expressions that it hurt to see. Behind him Ishida, Chad and Matsumoto stood guard.

He was so brave, standing there like that.

"It's okay," Rukia whispered. Her deep purple eyes were fixed on where Renji's hand hovered above Zabimaru's hilt. "They won't take you again."

Oh, she wanted to cry. Wanted to cry because friends like Rukia were so rare and yet this miscommunication and this secrecy was like an iron barrier.

"I have no wish to serve under Aizen Sousuke any longer." Leaf-green eyes never wavered from their point past Urahara's shoulder. Orihime's eyes never wavered from looking back at him. "I will understand your conditions."

"Why?" Ichigo blurted. His face had a reddish tint, as though he'd been holding his outburst in with his breath. "Why would you just stop?" The substitute shinigami's hand rose slightly, moving involuntarily towards the place where he had been punctured and almost killed.

Orihime knew the answer wouldn't be any fairy tale reason she could come up with. He didn't work like that – he didn't even work like anyone she knew. But then, that made sense, right? He was a hollow.

And even among hollows, Ulquiorra was different.

"He made promises," Ulquiorra stated. He hadn't blinked once and Orihime felt herself shrinking beneath his stare. "But the promises do not include the arrancar."

A vague answer, but that he had answered at all surprised some of the people in the room. Ikkaku, who had looked very much like he wanted to interrogate the Espada personally, snorted and cocked a brow at Yumichika.

"Ya should've guessed that before," Renji muttered.

"I was grateful," was the quiet reply.

Gratitude. He didn't look like it, but Orihime knew it meant a lot to Ulquiorra. To him, it was on par with respect. He understood the meaning of being grateful for what you had and what life gave you – and sometimes, he took it too far to the extent that it blinded him. She wasn't entirely clear on what had made him wise up to Aizen, but Orihime was glad that he had.

She smiled sadly. Gratitude. It had been their mutual gratitude – if not loneliness – that had got them here, was it not? Her gratitude at him keeping the beasts from her door and talking to her where no one else would…and his gratitude for her life-force and her smile. A gratitude that had manifested in deep, slow thrusts and stolen touches in her small cell bed.

"You will fight for us?" Urahara asked. Ichigo's grip on Zangetsu twitched.

"Yes." His green eyes slipped shut.

"There are no more attempts on Orihime to be made?"

Ulquiorra opened his eyes and looked at her. "There are none."

"I don't like it," Yoruichi spoke up, looking at Urahara. "But at the very least…we'd have the 4th Espada under guard."

She didn't like the way they were talking about him, like he wasn't there. She wished she had the courage to say something.

"True enough," Urahara beamed, and popped his lollipop out of his mouth. "Well then, the 'conditions', as you say."

Orihime tensed.

"You will be confined to a gigai that will serve several purposes. It will make you look human even as it suppresses your reiatsu. I am sure I don't need to tell you that even if you were trustworthy, your old companions may wish to search for you." Urahara waited for a reaction, but got none. "I have such a gigai now. Ururu, if you please."

Rukia's grip tightened on Orihime's hand, but she remained silent. As though sensing her urge to say something, Renji turned to cock a brow at Rukia. He smiled and turned back to face Ulquiorra again.

"Within the gigai is also a tracking device. I do not recommend you leaving the gigai because I will know if you do. Nothing short of a life threatening situation permits you to do so." Urahara didn't look away even as Ururu deposited a box at his feet and slipped back to stand with Jinta. "Our last issue is of where you will stay."

"It would be here, at the store," Yoruichi chimed in. "But myself and Kisuke aren't always around and nothing but captain class can be allowed to watch over you. So…"

"You can't mean with Inoue!" Rukia cried.

"With Inoue there would be both a captain and a vice captain," Yoruichi said, looking at Hitsugaya and receiving a stiff nod in response. "And it would be an unexpected move on our part."

"Unexpected is right!" Rukia growled, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"Rukia – " Renji started.

"I agree with Rukia!" Ichigo argued. "It's not right."

"Kurosaki, we don't have much choi – " Hitsugaya frowned.

"EVERYONE!"

They all stared over at Orihime. She had her hands over her ears, a pained look on her face. She looked around all of their faces and found herself wondering what right they had to be distressed about situations that didn't involve them. No – that was wrong. It involved them and it was sweet that they cared. But…

"Ulquiorra was with me in Hueco Mundo," she murmured, flushing under the stares of her comrades. "He never did anything that made me mistrust him and he took care of me well! I don't mind him staying with me, Captain Hitsugaya and Rangiku."

"Inoue…" Ichigo looked strangely crestfallen.

"I'm so tired right now," she almost-whispered. "Can't we just give him the gigai and go home? I want to go home."

Rukia's concerned look made her bristle and melt all at once. Orihime knew that her friends could never understand her time at Hueco Mundo just as she could now never understand their actions towards Ulquiorra. She felt trapped in some weird dimension where nothing made sense to her anymore.

She looked at Ulquiorra and thought that his eyes looked a little more mournful than normal. His hands were fisted in his pockets.

"Very well," Urahara said. All playfulness was gone from his voice. "Very well…"

* * *

He was, she noticed, intrigued by the TV. Or maybe it was the woman who looked horribly like Nnoitora he was intrigued by. Either way, when Rangiku had turned on the TV Ulquiorra had fixed his unblinking gaze on the screen.

She had expected some questions, like her shinigami residents had posed when they moved in. But he was silent. He stood in the gigai, wearing the white sweater and jeans, and simply stared at the TV set as Rangiku munched on cookies and Captain Hitsugaya glared at his spirit phone.

Orihime had never felt a bigger clash in worlds as she did then. Ulquiorra declined all offers to sit down and hadn't touched the green tea she'd made for him. He ignored all jibes and questions from Rangiku as though he hadn't heard them. Without his mask to cover one side of his head, his dark hair hung freely around his face and she thought that he looked tragically beautiful, like the gothic dolls she sometimes saw in store windows.

One meaningless show after another came on the TV and Orihime began to realise that a silent stand-off was taking place. Rangiku and Captain Hitsugaya didn't want to leave first. But Ulquoirra neither needed sleep nor cared for stand-offs. He continued to stare at the TV screen, the lights from the programs washing over his pale face in flickers.

Would his skin feel soft in the gigai? Orihime bit her lip. Would his 4 tattoo be slightly upraised, like it was in his arrancar form? Would his hair still feel silky?

Rangiku yawned loudly and dusted cookie crumbs off of the front of her shirt. Captain Hitsugaya's eyelids were hanging heavier than normal.

"You two should get some rest," Orihime smiled, hoping she didn't look too obvious. "I'll be fine out here – I'm not tired."

They didn't look suspicious – just wary. Especially Hitsugaya, with his icy eyes and his deep frown. But it was obvious even to them by now that Ulquiorra wasn't moving, and they needed sleep before Aizen started sending arrancar down after his renegade Espada.

The two shinigami bade them awkward goodnights, and Orihime smiled faintly because she knew that they would be retiring to the guest room…together.

She felt Ulquiorra's gaze when it finally turned to her. She looked up at him from the couch, uncertain how to act now that they were in her world, without bars over the windows and arrancar listening in at the door.

The faintest hint of a smile appeared at the corners of his lips.

"I'm sorry," she said, suddenly feeling like crying.

"Enemies are enemies," he said simply.

Orihime gulped. "You're…my enemy then?"

"Nothing can change the differences between us."

"Physically, maybe," she protested. She reached over the back of the couch to grasp one of his cool, pale hands. He stared down at where she touched him with the faintest of creases between his brows. "But – mentally is a different thing entirely!"

Ulquiorra didn't pull away, but he turned his eyes back to the TV. "I will never be sympathetic to shinigami."

Orihime blinked the mist away from her eyes, silence stretching out between them and being filled by the soft noises from the TV. "Then…it's a good thing I'm not a shinigami then!"

He sighed.

Orihime scrambled onto her knees on the couch, knocking cushions and a bag of cookies to the floor. His mouth met her half way – a cool but deep press of lips, followed by the faintest tickling of his fingertips gliding over her cheekbone. It was awkward – their noses bumped lightly and eventually her awkward position on the couch made her slip. She felt breathless and exhilarated.

Ulquiorra waited for her breathing to calm down, his hands loosely in his jeans pockets. "I cannot promise that your argument will work."

"I know," she nodded, looking down.

"I cannot pretend I am not the enemy."

She nodded again.

"But I am here for now."

And that was all she could ask, really. Orihime knew she was getting into a bad situation the first time she'd touched him. She didn't like the truth of it, but she accepted it. And if he was here for now…she was grateful.


End file.
